Tag Archives: Glasgow

I’m changing the habit I’ve got into of being reasonably active on Mondays – pilates – and Tues – tai chi and a swim – and Wed – all day at Citizens Advice Bureau – but then being rather too inactive Thurs, Fri, Sat, & Sun. So today being a Friday I got out my Nordic walking poles and went for a walk along the Firth & Clyde Canal from Temple to the Maryhill Locks. There and back came in at 5235 steps or 2.8km according to my iPhone Health app. The Health app told the My Fitness Pal app about the walk and MFP changed 5235 steps into 96 kcal expended.

But the main reason I’m talking about the walk is to get to the photos I took along the way….

To be honest I’ve never paid much attention to local council elections. Since I was old enough to vote I was either in Edinburgh or in Glasgow. Well there was a break for some years in Shropshire. But especially in Glasgow, you knew what the outcome was going to be. One of our local councillors was a LibDem chap for a long time but everyone knew that it was going to be a Labour run council. Again. And again. And again.

Oh well, apart from 1949-52 and 1968-71 when the council was run by Progressives and mostly without overall control. Oh and 1977-79 when again there was no overall control and it was run by a Conservative. Apart from those years, for all the other years since 1934 – Wikipedia doesn’t venture further back than that – it’s been Labour run.

According to Wikipedia: Flaneur (pronounced: [flɑnœʁ]), from the French noun flâneur, means “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, or “loafer”. Flânerie is the act of strolling, with all of its accompanying associations. To flâne “is the very opposite of doing nothing” according to Sainte-Beuve. For Fournel, there was nothing lazy in flânerie. It was, rather, a way of understanding the rich variety of the city landscape. It is a moving photograph (“un daguerréotype mobile et passioné”) of urban experience.

First of all action at the pond ~

I’ve been having a bit of trouble with calf and hamstring tendons. Ouch. As a result I can’t take going for a walk for granted. If I walk too far or too fast those tendons do not like it. If I don’t walk at all, they don’t like that either.

So I’ve come up with notion of being a photo flaneuse : I take my camera, I get a decent walk by sauntering, dawdling, photographing, watching, retracing my steps when need be, sitting on a bench. It takes much longer and it’s very enjoyable.

Victoria Park is ten minutes walk from my house. On the afternoon these photos were taken it was being enjoyed by many kids, parents, dogs, strollers and a few other photographers.

Then dogs, bare trees, bulbs sending up new leaves…. and the magpie that got away